The invention relates to an automatic locking of the drive device of a microtome actuated by a handle.
Known microtomes with a handle for the manual actuation of the drive device for the cutting operation have a safety device for blocking the handle. This is essential in order to rule out the risk of injury by an unintentional movement of the object holder or of the cutting knife when changing the object to be cut or when changing or aligning the cutting knife. It is therefore usual to lock the handle by a clamping lever arranged in the vicinity of the handle. However, this presupposes that the operator deliberately actuates this safety device. Operating errors are possible due to this laborious handling and consequently the risk of a considerable injury on the cutting knife is not to be ruled out.